Need to get me some...

What does Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report have in common with 60’s musician Jerry Garcia, rockers Dave Mathews Band, and clown-emcee of Woodstock — Wavy Gravy? Ideologically — not much (or maybe everything?) except taste — as Colbert is now a pint flavor.
The flavor, Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream™ is a decadent melting pot of vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. It’s the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth.
Recognizing that we, as a country, are at a time in our nation’s history where we need to reach across the aisle to people of all political ideologies — the left-leaning liberals at the company’s headquarters in Vermont felt it was fine to combine forces with the media man-of-steel. The company adds there are many similarities between Colbert and themselves. “He’s about political activism, so are we. He stands up for what he believes in, so do we. He supports Bill O’Reilly, and we… think he has a right to his opinion,” says ice cream Co-founder, Jerry Greenfield.
Colbert believes AmeriCone Dream can make a difference. “I’m not afraid to say it. Dessert has a well-known liberal agenda. What I hope to do with this ice cream is bring some balance back to the freezer case.”
Stephen Colbert is donating his proceeds from the sale of AMERICONE DREAM to charity through The Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund. The Fund will support charities of concern to Stephen such as food and medical assistance for disadvantaged children, helping veterans and their familes, and environmental causes. Said Colbert, “I will save the world.”

Sounds good, see you there!

I may be a few minutes late, but I'll be there = ) See you then-

OK, 7 pm Thirsty Scholar in Somerville.
Address is: 70 Beacon St., Somerville, MA 02143
Phone Number 617-497-2294

http://www.thirstyscholarpub.com/home.htm

The Thirsty Scholar sounds good to me!

Best,

Wendy

Ok Ladies, Probably should wrap up this discussion of where to go!

Sounds like Thirsty Scholar or Harvard Faculty are the top 2 choices. Although I love the idea of Harvard faculty, some people were so-so on the idea and it is more difficult with reservations etc. So I suggest going to the Thirsty Scholar...OK with everyone?

The Thirsty Scholar or Jae's would be my vote..............

I love the idea of the Thirsty Scholar! I'm also fine with Harvard, so wherever.....

Harvard faculty club actually sounds fun to me....

I think the crowd is worried about fitting into the harvard faculty club, but Wendy says grad students go there too, so it can't be too prestigous. "I wouldn't want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member" ; I think its sounds like an interesting idea.

Another vaguely related themed place could be the Thirsty Scholar - a pub in Somerville.
The Capital Grille. Get it? Capital and Labor?

Levitt went to MIT - the miracle of science bar is near there although Arshad and his brother (both physicists) hated Freakonimics for not being scientific enough.

Or.... they talk about sumo wrestlers- could this be an excuse for Bookclub's first sushi jaunt? Such as Jae's? the brookline location might be the most accessible: greenline and there's parking.
http://www.jaescafe.com/menu.php


Also, since Kelly didn't give me back my book (ahem) I'm refreshing my memory by reading this. It may be of interest to others.
http://www.freakonomics.com/pdf/StudentFREAKONOMICS.pdf

The bookclub date is March 26 (next Monday).

I rather like the idea of the Harvard Faculty club, very academic, which is what this book supposedly all about. Wendy what is the club like? Would it be an OK place for us to have a discussion, or will we be frowned by old gents smoking pipes? Is it difficult to get in or not? I would not want you to go out of your way on it.

I really have no other suggestions, but will keep brainstorming!

I'm sorry I won't be making bookclub either :(
I'm also sorry that I couldn't dig the snaab out to return Cat's book to her :(

Good comments, Christina! I'll jump in on the abortion issue... isn't this about the same time that the pill gained widespread usage? Maybe that's a safer arguement to have ;)

And I'm curious about the Harvard Faculty Club - what a cool place to go for a young female bookclub. I'm getting a stuffy men's club image - all wood paneled and cigary! which I'm sure it's not, but still... a fun image!

Hope to see you all soon!

The 26th works for me.

Sorry I won’t be able to make BC this month…I’m eager to find out what you all discuss and what your thoughts are.

Anyway, in lieu of my attendance, in response to the article Erin posted and going along with the general feeling of frustration Freakonomics evoked in me...here are some thoughts...

and maybe the resident economists can correct me if my thought process is out of order...

Just skimming through the article, it bothers me that when talking about leisure time, they apparently group everyone together, the employed and the unemployed. How else are women spending on average 17 hours a week unless you are averaging unemployed and employed. And in what demographic are we talking. Are you including the grannies out there who are too old to work? B/c that changes what these numbers look like. And women outlive men, so there aren’t as many retired gramps out there to dilute the number of hours that men are working. And what about the impact of medicine helping Americans live longer lives. Were these numbers adjusted for that?

My point being…you can really take data and twist it to tell a story that it doesn’t actually tell. With out more information, I have a hard time accepting many of the conclusions drawn in this article as well as in Freakonomics. I think people *want* to believe the stories in Freakonomics because they are so interesting, but without seeing the raw data that they used I find a lot of the theories questionable and I certainly wouldn’t repeat them as fact. Overall, I felt pretty skeptical of what I was reading throughout the book…anyone else?

Here is another example Talking about pools being more dangerous than handguns:

“But according to the data, their choice isn't smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 millionplus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn't even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani's house than in gunplay at Amy's.”

There are so many things this doesn’t take into account – like what are the circumstances under which children die in pools and by gun. Is it children who are unsupervised near a pool? Was Molly being supervised? Children who don’t know how to swim? Has Molly had swim lessons? Is there any difference in the risk of gun death if the gun is legally registered, not registered, has a safety, doesn’t have a safety, is kept locked up, is owned by an alcoholic/drug addict etc. Is there a greater risk of accidental death by a gun in the home as opposed to a hunting rifle that might be locked up when the owner isn’t out hunting? Or a gun in the home you are playing in as opposed to a gun in a neighbor’s house? There are so many other pieces to this story. You can’t just take the straight numbers and assume that it applies exactly to this particular situation.

Anyway, those are my thoughts…and here is question for the group when you get together for dinner…do you buy the argument linking abortion to crime?

Have a great time at dinner girls. I’ll see you in April!

Hi Everyone,
the 26th works for me...and not that I don't want to go to the Harvard Faculty club, but is there any other suggestions for restaurants? I am about halfway through the book and I get a fun/kitchy/quirky vibe from it, and didn't know if we could or wanted to come up with something related to that....

What day are we meeting?

If you think it's a good idea, I can make a reservation at the Harvard Faculty club for our next meeting. The only catch is that you will have to bring cash, because I will have to put it on my account.

Let me know what you think.

Best,

Wendy
cell 214-934-1277

Have a blast in Italy Christina! Definitely post some questions before you go....

As food for thought I came across this interesting article on slate that reminded me of the book we are reading....enjoy.

The Theory of the Leisure ClassAn economic mystery: Why do the poor seem to have more free time than the rich?By Steven E. LandsburgPosted Friday, March 9, 2007, at 1:23 PM ET

As you've probably heard, there's been an explosion of inequality in the United States over the past four decades. The gap between high-skilled and low-skilled workers is bigger than ever before, and it continues to grow.

How can we close the gap? Well, I suppose we could round up a bunch of assembly-line workers and force them to mow the lawns of corporate vice presidents. Because the gap I'm talking about is the gap in leisure time, and it's the least educated who are pulling ahead.

In 1965, leisure was pretty much equally distributed across classes. People of the same age, sex, and family size tended to have about the same amount of leisure, regardless of their socioeconomic status. But since then, two things have happened. First, leisure (like income) has increased dramatically across the board. Second, though everyone's a winner, the biggest winners are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

To quantify those changes, you've got to decide exactly what leisure means. You can start by deciding what it's not. Surely working at your desk or on the assembly line is not leisure. Neither is cleaning or ironing. But what about standing around the water cooler, riding the train to work, gardening, pet care, or tinkering with your car? What about playing board games with your children?

Those are judgment calls, but it turns out not to matter very much what calls you make. When professors Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst combined the results of several large surveys (including studies where randomly chosen subjects kept detailed time diaries), they found that by any definition, the trends are clear.

In 1965, the average man spent 42 hours a week working at the office or the factory; throw in coffee breaks, lunch breaks, and commuting time, and you're up to 51 hours. Today, instead of spending 42 and 51 hours, he spends 36 and 40. What's he doing with all that extra time? He spends a little on shopping, a little on housework, and a lot on watching TV, reading the newspaper, going to parties, relaxing, going to bars, playing golf, surfing the Web, visiting friends, and having sex. Overall, depending on exactly what you count, he's got an extra six to eight hours a week of leisure—call it the equivalent of nine extra weeks of vacation per year.

For women, time spent on the job is up from 17 hours a week to 24. With breaks and commuting thrown in, it's up from 20 hours to 26. But time spent on household chores is down from 35 hours a week to 22, for a net leisure gain of four to six hours. Call it five extra vacation weeks.
A small part of those gains is because of demographic change. The average American is older now and has fewer children, so it's not surprising that he or she works less. But even when you compare modern Americans to their 1965 counterparts—people with the same family size, age, and education—the gains are still on the order of 4 to 8 hours a week, or something like seven extra weeks of leisure per year.

But not for everyone. About 10 percent of us are stuck in 1965, leisurewise. At the opposite extreme, 10 percent of us have gained a staggering 14 hours a week or more. (Once again, your gains are measured in comparison to a person who, in 1965, had the same characteristics that you have today.) By and large, the biggest leisure gains have gone precisely to those with the most stagnant incomes—that is, the least skilled and the least educated. And conversely, the smallest leisure gains have been concentrated among the most educated, the same group that's had the biggest gains in income.

Aguiar and Hurst can't explain fully that rising inequality, just as nobody can explain fully the rising inequality in income. But there are, I think, two important morals here.
First, man does not live by bread alone. Our happiness depends partly on our incomes, but also on the time we spend with our friends, our hobbies, and our favorite TV shows. So, it's a good exercise in perspective to remember that by and large, the big winners in the income derby have been the small winners in the leisure derby, and vice versa.

Second, a certain class of pundits and politicians are quick to see any increase in income inequality as a problem that needs fixing—usually through some form of redistributive taxation. Applying the same philosophy to leisure, you could conclude that something must be done to reverse the trends of the past 40 years—say, by rounding up all those folks with extra time on their hands and putting them to (unpaid) work in the kitchens of their "less fortunate" neighbors. If you think it's OK to redistribute income but repellent to redistribute leisure, you might want to ask yourself what—if anything—is the fundamental difference.

Yippee! Spring Break!! ...which means that I can make the next Book Club meeting... It seems to be Freakeconomics... which I've read and am looking forward to reading again!

Boy this email makes me sounds like a nerd!

See you in 12 days!

Best,

Wendy
cell 214-934-1277
email jeffus@bc.edu

Yippee! Spring Break!! ...which means that I can make the next Book Club meeting... It seems to be Freakeconomics... which I've read and am looking forward to reading again!

Boy this email makes me sounds like a nerd!

See you in 12 days!

Best,

Wendy

I'm going to be in Italy from the 21st-30th so unfortunately I'll have to miss the next book club meeting (booo). If for some reason the date gets pushed back to April, I'll definitely be there. Maybe I'll post my comments/questions on the book on the blogsite before I leave.

I can do the 26th! Actually, the 26th works really well for me. I better start reading.

And EEEWWWW to the incest story!!!!!! I know I said I was jealous when my brother got engaged, but not THAT kind of jealous!

Hello Ladies-

So it is approaching mid-march and time to figure out the bookclub date and location. We have been shooting for the 4th Monday of the month which would be March 26 (Cat thanks for keeping track of that!).

Start thinking about where to go!

Brother-sister couple challenges German incest law
Straight from the scary fairy tales of once-upon-an-adoption comes the story of Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski, a brother and sister, who fell in love, had four children and now are fighting the German courts to overthrow its brother-sister incest law. As reported Wednesday by the BBC, the couple describes themselves as a "normal couple," who just want to have a family and live without discrimination. Stuebing already spent two years in jail for committing incest, and he'll get thrown back into jail for another sentence if the current incest laws stand. Three of the couple's four children have already been taken into foster care.
Now, maybe I'm becoming a reactionary scold in my approaching dotage, but the couple's relationship doesn't sound terribly normal, nor even, perhaps, consensual. According to the article, Stuebing, who had been adopted by another family, found his biological family at the age of 23, when Karolewski was 15. After their mother died six months later, the couple fell in love and began living together and popping out babies at a prodigious rate of four in six years. Okay, vive la differénce and all, but people! That's a 16-year-old living with her 24-year-old brother and pregnant most of the time. Ech.
But it's not as if they don't have a case. Incest laws around the world vary widely, though the practice is illegal in most countries. In Germany, sexual relations with a relative still constitutes a criminal offense, punishable by up to three years in prison. But in neighboring France, Napoleon abolished incest laws in 1810, and recently Japan, Argentina and Brazil legalized it. The United States still criminalizes incest and many states still outlaw kissin'-cousin incest as well.
The particulars of Steubing's and Karolewski's story are less interesting than the questions raised by their lawsuit. Invoking racial hygiene laws on the one hand and modern motherhood on the other, the case fingers the bleeding edge of our own entitlements.
"Why are disabled parents allowed to have children, or people with hereditary diseases or women over 40? No-one says that is a crime," Erik Wilhelm, the couple's lawyer, told the BBC. "This couple are not harming anyone. It is discrimination. And besides, we must not forget that every child is so valuable."
These arguments play upon two cherished notions in modern western societies: That consensual love between adults should be respected by society and that everyone who wants to have a baby should have the right to bear one.
Of course, incest taboos predate the science of genetics, but many of the contemporary arguments against the practice derive from the knowledge that interbreeding produces children with higher risk of disabilities. Among offspring of siblings, there's a 50 percent chance of disability, and so far the German couple's children have proved the rule: According to Steubing, one son has "epilepsy and learning difficulties" and one daughter has "special needs."
When is it okay to give knowingly conceive a child that has a higher than average chance of disabilities? At what point does the desire to become a parent turn to criminal selfishness? With a 10 percent chance of disability, or a 20 or 30 percent? I know 50-50 seem like pretty bad odds, but no doubt some parents with genetic diseases face similar risks without legal ramifications. With older parents, in-vitro multiples and the dubious gift of genetic testing all poured into the societal test tube, no doubt the next decade will force us to confront the edge between the freedom to bear children and the responsibility to protect them.

Pretty Pictures of the kite festival in Lahore Pakistan

http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/all/2333